30 September 2015

Happier Days in Palmyra: Part II

This funerary portrait of an elegant upper-class woman from Palmyra used to belong to the wealthy Italian art historian and critic, Federico Ziri. Before it entered Ziri's collection, however, the bust had already passed through the hands of several important French collections. As with so many Palmyran portraits in private hands, there are gaps in its collecting history. We don't know, of course, when or where the bust was found, dug up and sold.

Our lady's portrait first came to public notice in 1903 when it appeared in the Beirut collection of the linguist and excavator Father Sébastien Ronzevalle, SJ. Long before the Jesuit father's death (d. January 1937), the bust had resurfaced in the possession of the slightly dubious French architect Émile Bertone, who had travelled to Palmyra in 1898 where he copied and published a mixed bag of inscriptions. He kept the portrait until his death (d. March 1931), when it was sold at the Paris auction house of Clément Platt. Who bought it? We don't know. We know nothing of its fate between 1931 and the 1960s when it entered Federico Ziri's collection (along with another nine Palmyran busts); exactly how and where he acquired the lady's portrait is not yet clear.

Like the vast majority of Palmyran reliefs cloistered in private collections, her portrait had, for all practical purposes, vanished from the world. Zeri kept the busts in his private villa just outside Rome. The art historian had come to believe that he descended from a noble Syrian family from Homs (ancient Emesa, 160 km as the crow flies across the desert from Palmyra); accordingly, he placed the ten portraits in the entrance hall of his villa -- rather like an ancient Roman patrician's ancestral busts -- so that anyone visiting him would have to pass along them, as if through a guard of honour. In short, if you wanted to see the lady and her compatriots, you needed a personal invitation.

Ziri's ten busts were finally published in 1986 -- albeit in an Italian learned journal of little international reach. When Zeri died in 1998, he bequeathed the ten pieces to the Museo Gregoriana Egizio of the Vatican Museum, where presumably they will rest until the Day of Judgment. You can now find our lady online with some information in Italian and in English.

That being said, the museum's text is brief and not entirely crystal clear. In fact, it merely whetted my appetite. Who wouldn't like to learn more about this woman's life and death, the clothes she is wearing, her choice of jewels, and even the meaning of her hand gestures? But, until today -- unless you are sitting in a world-class university library -- finding this out will be a complicated and long drawn-out business, which might even end with your hitting a brick wall.

Ye Olde Way

The first question we would need to answer is the date of the relief itself: when did her family have that beautiful stone carved in her memory? That's not too difficult -- for the bust is a fine example of the early-third century style of Palmyran sculpture; so the memorial was made in the years between ca. 200 and 230 CE. Happily, there is also a woman's bust in the National Museum of Damacus that is nearly a twin of our lady -- and her portrait is precisely dated by its inscription to 226/27 CE. We can't be more than a decade off from that date.

Our lady is also inscribed with Palmyrene script on the slab above her left shoulder ... and that text should reveal her name and close family relations. Being outside of my dream library, finding that text proved difficult. I searched on Google by catalogue number and finally tracked her down in a truly obscure academic journal in the middle of a discussion about an ancient Latin inscription from Libya(!). As it happens, the Libyan man's name was also shared by a handful of Nabataeans and Moabites as well as a very few Palmyrans; but only by one female, who turns out to be our lady: her name is Rumai. The name probably comes from the root RWM, meaning 'high' (perhaps in the sense of 'high-born'). Finally, with the help of inter-library loans,* I read the complete inscription:

Image of (SLMT)Rumai (RWMJ), wife ofIarhi (JRHJ), son of(HN'). Alas!

Admittedly, I was not much the wiser.

Although in theory, I was now in a position to winkle out possible family connections, this could not realistically be done outside of my dream library ... so I put that task aside for another time.

Her finery, however, which is carved in very great detail, allowed me to start on the interesting task of comparing her statue with those of other wealthy Palmyran women of her time.

Beginning at the top: beneath her veil she wears a high rolled elaborately decorated turban with rosettes and pearls apparently sewn on. I know of several portraits with similar headdresses, such as this lovely lady (left) now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Both ladies also share the same swept-up hair style. The headdress and hairdo can also be found together on a few other female heads of which I have but dismal black-and-white photographs (e.g. IN 1102, 1099, 1104, in the Ny Carlsburg Glyptotek in Copenhagen) -- all dated on stylistic grounds to ca. 210-230 CE. So we can be reasonably sure that these particular features were shared by some fashionable women at this time.

Next, Rumai's lovely cloak is adorned with a vertical band of acanthus leaves, a design repeated on the cuffs which also end in fringes (or possibly fur). Ladies' cloaks are rarely embroidered in Palmyra: here, it is the men, not the women, who sport elaborately decorated outer garments, especially (though not exclusively) those wearing Parthian-type tunics and trousers. Besides Lady Rumai and her 'twin' in Damascus, another exception is the 'Beauty of Palmyra' (illustrated in Part I) whose sleeves are decorated with a pattern that seems to echo her ornate bracelets. There are, of course, a few other exceptionally clad women, but it still holds true that embroidered cloaks are very uncommon on women's funerary busts.

Then I thought of Bitti, daughter of Yarhai (left). One rarely thinks of Bitti. Why not? Because she is one of the very very few Palmyran women who does not wear a veil -- an altogether exceptional group; who are these strange or wanton women? Are they (as some have proposed) freed slaves, or even eunuchs, or are they merely flappers out for a fling, the better to flaunt their special hairstyle? I won't get into this question today (though one day, I will) but note that Bitti, too, wears a beautifully decorated cloak. She is also dated to ca. 230 CE. It all seems to be coming together nicely.

Now, what we really need in order to progress further is to see all the women who are wearing such decorated cloaks. And then put that together with all women whose jewellery -- drop-earrings, necklaces, and finger rings -- is similar to that worn by Lady Rumai. But even a preliminary look at jewellery would take me days ... if not weeks of work; and I'd still be certain to miss a large number of poorly-illustrated busts, as well as those which have never been shown to the public. Honestly, what can we hope to learn from just one portrait, or even a wall full of them?

Not very much, really.

If Lady Rumai is not to remain little more than a pretty picture, we need a Corpus.

What's in a Corpus?

Palmyran portraits are scattered in public and private collections throughout the world. They are often poorly published, or not at all -- and they have never been catalogued, described, dated, or treated as an entire group.

That is now about to change.

The Palmyra Portrait Project***

When Harald Ingholt (Part I of this post) worked out the essential chronology and dating of Palmyran sculpture in 1928, he knew of 524 portraits. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, he found and drew in his diaries almost 1,000 pieces. But today, the Palmyra Portrait Project (PPP) database has recorded more than 2,600 portraits -- far more than anyone ever knew existed -- from museums and private collections around the world. This includes hundreds of portraits that had briefly appeared on the antiquities markets and then vanished from public view.

The PPP is preparing a complete research dossier for every single known piece of Palmyran portraiture. Wherever possible, new high-resolution photographs have been made. That is an essential step: look at the photograph of Lady Rumai at the top of this post: it's the best I could find online, not bad but it blurs some details, such as the round brooch that pins her cloak (next to her left hand). Brooches are an important item of jewellery, usually of gold -- and their shapes and designs change over time; certain designs perhaps are meaningful but we can't know what they might mean until we can compare them all, type by type.

Portrait descriptions will also include detailed analysis of poses, faces, and attributes (usually, what is held in the hands). Gender, colour traces, hairstyles, dress, and jewellery are all recorded in minute detail, and made searchable. For the very first time, it will be possible to compare every detail of each sculpture with all the others. Added to the data, of course, are the dated inscriptions as well as all known family relations [So-and-so, the son/daughter, father/mother of so-and-so: up to five generations!] -- and a whole world of new research possibilities opens up.

Portraits can be compared across and within groups such as priests, women, children, or even those sharing the same attribute. Sticking to women for the moment -- as is the wont of this blog -- did you know that five women hold writing tablets (vs. more than 100 men); who are these ladies? One such woman with a tablet doesn't wear a veil (left); is that significant? Are there still more ladies with stylus or tablets out there, in less accessible collections? Women sometimes hold keys (men never do): are these the keys to the household cupboard or to the gates of the world beyond? And who else is wearing any special piece of jewellery that catches your eye? All of this can soon be studied by date and, if we're lucky, by family connections. We'll be able see how facial features are treated differently over time, and follow changes in fashion and tastes -- hairstyles, beards and moustaches for men and hairstyles, headdresses and jewellery for women.

Let's say that you'd like to know if the pearls-and-rosette decoration sewn on Lady Rumai's turban is a design that runs in her family, perhaps even a badge of her clan? We can only study that if we first know who else wears that particular pattern, their dates, and inscriptions (if any) that might lead to other family members. By this time next year I might be able to tell you. And then, when I next think about the Unveiled Women of Palmyra, I expect to have a complete picture of all of them before I start to write. What a difference that will make!

Palmyrene portraiture has an inherent logic all its own. Everyone who studies it has an intuitive understanding of this. It's time we find out more exactly what it is.

* My warm thanks to Prof. Anna-Marguerita Jasink of the University of Florence, who was kind enough to call it up from the university library in Naples.

** Harald Ingholt (see Part I) long ago divided the known Palmyrene funerary portraits into three distinct chronological groups by taking the small number of dated examples and grouping about them undated reliefs that were stylistically similar. While later scholars have refined Ingholt’s categories, the basic groupings have been maintained. For example, we know that most men before 150 CE are clean-shaven whereas they tend to be bearded from 150-200 CE. Or that, after 200 CE, certain facial features appear, such as unincised eyes and a single groove for eyebrows, as well as the marks of the curved and flat chisel on the necks. Women in his early group (50–150 CE) wore little jewelry and often held a spindle and a distaff in the left hand. Those in his second group (150–200 CE) wore more jewellery, including necklaces, bracelets, and rings, rarely held the spindle and distaff, and frequently raised the right hand to hold the veil back from the face. In the latest group (200-273 CE), some women display even more jewellery, and many used their left hand to hold the veil. However, it's possible that the amount of jewellery a woman wears correlates better with her family wealth or some other factors than simply with chronology. This is just one of the many conundrums awaiting solution after the Palmyra Portrait Project is fully launched.

*** Under the direction of Dr Rubina Raja of Aarhus University and Dr Andreas J.M. Kropp at Nottingham University.

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About Me

I studied Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford (M.Litt.) and am a member of the British School at Athens. I excavated for many years on Crete and on the Greek mainland and travelled extensively in the Middle East. I have lived and worked among the ruins of the three great Caravan Cities: Petra, Palmyra, and Baalbek. It was at Palmyra in Syria that I began to tell the story of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and the rebellion that she led against imperial Rome. I was living within the grounds of the Temple of Bel, and at night, when the great gates of the temple were shut, I came closer to the spirit of the time and place than probably anyone has ever done before. I know that I felt very close to Zenobia, which made the book a joy for me to write.

IS THIS ZENOBIA'S REAL PORTRAIT?

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These are five blogs I enjoy reading the most, and without which life would be less interesting for me: David Meadows' Rogue Classicism is my number one go-to blog.... My second choice is Judith Weingarten's Zenobia - she covers strong ancient women, not just Zenobia, and since these warrior women are the subject of my next book, I love her lengthy well-researched posts. PHDiva"Judith Weingarten, author of The Chronicle of Zenobia: The Rebel Queen writes about gods, kings, war and chivalry here. Written with pace and verve it is a fantastic and exciting analysis."Mike @ Official Osprey Publishing Blog

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